Speak no more! Thou canst not comfort me. I’d rather hear The serpent’s hiss than speech from a false heart. There was a time thy voice had power to calm, And lay the fiend within me: Let me rest Lonely and cursed amid my wretchedness; I have ventured all and lost—’twas Destiny! There are dark spirits moving through the world, Casting a saddening influence over all Within their vortex: Such perchance is mine; With its wild, fitful struggles, and its gleams Now good, now evil, stronger with my strength The eclipse of Heaven’s brightness. Who can read The unknown language of the human heart, Though writ in fiery characters? Where the power To judge an erring creature, when the thoughts, Hidden even to himself, cannot be fathomed Save by Omniscience? In thy hollow hand Measure the waters of the depthless sea, Or with far-seeing vision through the expanse Of yonder firmament of Heaven, speak Of that which is to be, though yet unseen In its bright pages: Easier task for man Than judge his brother justly. To myself I am a mystery, why not to thee? The waters of my heart are deeper far Than plummet ever sounded. Oh, dark Future! Thy veil once lifted, will the power be given To note their secret depths. Why have I trusted But to be deceived? and not by man alone! Why have I ever loved, if but to love Has been to bind myself upon the wheel Of wretchedness? The punishment of gods! Why should I ask for sunshine on my heart, If with it, it must wither? ask thyself. Reading thine own heart’s secret, thou may’st learn How much I needed sympathy. My path, Now filled with rankest weeds, might have been pure Under thy smile and teaching. Now, too late! To wrestle with the world for an existence, Bowed, but not crushed by Fate, is of itself Enough to turn the heart to bitter gall, And make it curse, where, in its sunnier hours, It might have shed a blessing. Fortune’s smile, Unto the favored, clothes the earth with flowers; Its frown, alas! will make the brightest spot Black as a demon’s glance—its fruit as bitter As the Dead Sea’s—and like it naught but ashes! The meanest thing, Infuriated in the hunter’s toils, Turns at the last with fierce and vengeful cry To battle with its foe; and some there are, Lost to all hope, in their own quiv’ring flesh Implant their poisonous venom, choosing thus To be themselves their executioners, Than fall upon the spear of might and wrong. Such do I fear myself: That I have been, In happier days, a lover of my kind— Heart as capacious, hand as firm and true, As ever graced the proudest in the land. I have been thus—ANSWER! what am I now? I have found coldness where I looked for love— Ingrates ’mid friends—the half averted head, With the neglectful glance, that seemed to say, Thou art not of us now! Half-way to meet